Creative Projects
Title
Prison Notebooks
Description
This Folder contains documentation on the making of a trilogy of creative pieces entitled Prison Notebooks. All pieces (theatre, radio and film) are based on Dorothy Macardle’s Gaol Journals.
Theatre
The first part of the Prison Notebooks series is a new play intended for solo performance based primarily on Macardle’s first-hand gaol journals. In our production, we blend elements of realist bio-drama with expressionist soundscapes, uncanny lighting and the aesthetics of dream, acknowledging Macardle’s concern with truth, side by side with her partisan political propagandism and her attraction to the supernatural.
Development of this work was made possible with the support of an Arts Council Theatre Projects Award. Further funding was sought from Louth County Council to develop the work to a full-stage performance presented at Kilmainham Gaol in September 2022 before going on to Smock Alley in November 2022.
The first part of the Prison Notebooks series is a new play intended for solo performance based primarily on Macardle’s first-hand gaol journals. In our production, we blend elements of realist bio-drama with expressionist soundscapes, uncanny lighting and the aesthetics of dream, acknowledging Macardle’s concern with truth, side by side with her partisan political propagandism and her attraction to the supernatural.
Development of this work was made possible with the support of an Arts Council Theatre Projects Award. Further funding was sought from Louth County Council to develop the work to a full-stage performance presented at Kilmainham Gaol in September 2022 before going on to Smock Alley in November 2022.
Radio
Dorothy Macardle’s Prison Notebooks is a radio documentary tracing the four–year process of archive research, transcription and workshop development towards the theatre production and was supported by the BAI and RTÉ and broadcast by Lyric FM on 6th November 2022 to mark the centenary of Macardle’s arrest. The 43-minute radio documentary follows theatre artists Sharon McArdle and Declan Gorman on their quest to investigate the prison experiences of Irish revolutionary and literary artist Dorothy Macardle through her personal jail diaries. It traces the artists' voyage into the archives, visits to the gaol cell where Dorothy was held and back to the rehearsal room where the performance gradually evolves.
Dorothy Macardle’s Prison Notebooks is a radio documentary tracing the four–year process of archive research, transcription and workshop development towards the theatre production and was supported by the BAI and RTÉ and broadcast by Lyric FM on 6th November 2022 to mark the centenary of Macardle’s arrest. The 43-minute radio documentary follows theatre artists Sharon McArdle and Declan Gorman on their quest to investigate the prison experiences of Irish revolutionary and literary artist Dorothy Macardle through her personal jail diaries. It traces the artists' voyage into the archives, visits to the gaol cell where Dorothy was held and back to the rehearsal room where the performance gradually evolves.
Film
The short film is a memory scape. It is a study of Dorothy, a self-described psychic, temporarily encaged. We find her, in essence, still walking the corridors and stairs of Kilmainham by night when the building is silent other than to the echoes of voices and sounds of 100 years ago. Dorothy Macardle remains a witness to her past and that of her fellow Republican women who were held in inhumane conditions. She is also witnessing her psychic visionary journeys of 1923, which give her comfort. Not a simplistic ghost movie, our film draws from Dorothy’s writings and later success in Gothic Noir cinema to create lingering impressions of the artistry, vision, trauma and ultimate triumph of a notable woman in Irish history. This project was funded by the Bank of Ireland's ‘Begin Together Arts Award’, 2021.
The short film is a memory scape. It is a study of Dorothy, a self-described psychic, temporarily encaged. We find her, in essence, still walking the corridors and stairs of Kilmainham by night when the building is silent other than to the echoes of voices and sounds of 100 years ago. Dorothy Macardle remains a witness to her past and that of her fellow Republican women who were held in inhumane conditions. She is also witnessing her psychic visionary journeys of 1923, which give her comfort. Not a simplistic ghost movie, our film draws from Dorothy’s writings and later success in Gothic Noir cinema to create lingering impressions of the artistry, vision, trauma and ultimate triumph of a notable woman in Irish history. This project was funded by the Bank of Ireland's ‘Begin Together Arts Award’, 2021.
